Personality Psychology A Student Centered Approach 2nd Edition McMartin Test Bank 1

Personality Psychology: A Student Centered
Approach 2e
Sage Publications
Jim McMartin
PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY A STUDENT

CENTERED APPROACH 2ND EDITION
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CHAPTER 5. IDENTITY AND SELF-ESTEEM (70 items)
1. According to William James, our self-esteem is the ratio of . . .

a. Our successes divided by our pretensions
b. Our achievements divided by the successes we expected
*c. Both of the above
d. Neither of the above
2. Research shows that the more people value those skills that they excel at, . . .
a. The greater their expectations for future successes
*b. The higher their overall self-esteem
c. The more depressed they are over their lack of skills in other areas
d. None of the above
3. Research designed to show that low self-esteem is the root cause of such social problems as
drug use, dropping out of school, and criminal activity has repeatedly found that . . .
a. Low self-esteem is the main cause of these social problems
b. Programs that increase self-esteem help to eliminate these social problems
c. Both of the above
*d. Neither of the above
4. One strength of most measures of self-esteem is that . . .

a. They give equal weight to all items, so they are not biased
b. They are standardized and thus are comparable to each other
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c. Both of the above

*d. Neither of the above
5. Most research efforts designed to show that self-esteem affects behavior have been _______.
*a. nomothetic
b. idiographic
c. idiosyncratic
d. highly standardized
6. In a typical research effort to show that self-esteem affects behavior, the average level of self-
esteem by the participants is _______.
*a. high
b. average
c. low
d. very low
7. An idiographic study of self-esteem is . . .

a. The most efficient way to study the effects of self-esteem
b. The most accurate way to determine the group average
c. Too idiosyncratic to be of much value
*d. Uncommon
8. Erik Erikson attributed his interest and lifelong work on identity to . . .

a. Wanting to please his mother
*b. His need to solve his own identity crisis
c. Coming to America at an early age
d. His fluency in three languages
9. Erikson’s term for the belief that foreign nations, tribes, and countries are inferior to one’s
own is _______.
*a. pseudospeciation
b. ethnocentrism
c. cultural supremacy
d. none of the above
10. Erikson called his theory of personality psychosocial because . . .

*a. It emphasizes both internal psychological variables as well as external societal pressures
b. Erikson was trained as both a psychoanalyst and as a community organizer
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Jim McMartin
c. Freud suggested it to him while Erikson was in an hypnotic trance

d. It is basically a sociological theory
11. In Erikson’s view, successfully forming an identity requires . . .

a. An intrapersonal process of continuity over time
b. An interpersonal process of finding a social niche
*c. Both of the above
d. Neither of the above
12. Erikson’s view is that how an adolescent handles his or her identity crisis depends on how
well he or she previously resolved the earlier psychosocial crises. This means that Erikson’s
theory is _______.
a. idiographic
*b. epigenetic
c. organic
d. telepathic
13. In Erikson’s theory, the ego strength that accrues from successfully resolving the identity
crisis is _______.
a. a lifelong identity
b. occupational stability
*c. fidelity
d. name constancy
14. Research shows that individuals with a strong sense of identity, compared to those with
tentative identities, are better able to . . .
a. Control their feelings
b. Successfully achieve their goals
c. Project a consistent self-image to other people
*d. All of the above
15. In Erikson’s view, the identity crisis begins in _______ and ends in _______.
a. early childhood; adolescence
b. adolescence; adolescence
*c. adolescence; adulthood
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Jim McMartin
16. An individual who is unwilling to resolve his or her identity crisis is at risk for acquiring the
ego pathology Erikson calls _______.
*a. role repudiation
b. inertia
c. inhibition
d. inverse ego orientation
17. An individual whose identity is centered around hating and dehumanizing a social group
different from his or her own is said to have _______.
a. a healthy identity
*b. a toxic social identity
c. an epigenetic personality structure
d. KKK leadership potential
18. Individuals who dehumanize people from social groups different from their own tend to
show . . .
a. Disagreeable personality traits such as psychopathy
b. An automatic emotional aversion to unfamiliar persons
c. A social disconnection from other people
19. Erikson views adolescence as a period of psychosocial moratorium. This means it is a time
when . . .
*a. The young person can experiment with different social roles without committing to any
particular one
b. The Gothic lifestyle is especially appealing
c. Social moratoria compete for attention
20. James Marcia has proposed that there are two essential components to identity formation in
adolescence. These are _______.
a. love and knowledge
*b. crisis and commitment
c. moratorium and foreclosure
21. Investigations of James Marcia’s classification scheme have often found that the highest
levels of self-esteem are found among those who have arrived at _______.
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Jim McMartin
*a. identity achievement

b. identity diffusion
c. foreclosure
d. moratorium
22. A college student is observed to deal with stressful situations by procrastinating, engaging in
wishful thinking, or doing anything to reduce the tension rather than directly deal with the
problem. This student is most likely experiencing the identity solution Marcia calls _______.
a. identity achievement
*b. identity diffusion
c. foreclosure
d. moratorium
23. Among college students who switch from one identity status to another, students are more
likely to change from _______ to _______ than the reverse.
a. foreclosure; identity achievement
b. identity diffusion; identity achievement
*c. both of the above
d. neither of the above
24. The recent findings of identity development in adulthood mean that . . .

a. Erikson’s view of identity needs updating
*b. Our identity is flexible and adaptive
c. Erikson’s psychosocial theory is incomplete
25. According to Erikson, the psychosocial crisis of young adulthood is _______.

*a. intimacy versus isolation
b. identity achievement versus identity confusion
c. work versus play
26. Research on gender differences in intimacy during adolescence show that . . .

a. Girls engage in more talking and sharing than boys
b. Boys engage in same-sex intimacy via shared activities and sports
c. Intimacy within opposite-sex friendships emerges late in adolescence
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and four other teeth), a nearly complete mandible with all the teeth, a left
clavicle, a right humerus, the shaft of the left humerus, a left radius, the
heads of two ulnæ, a nearly complete right femur, a complete left tibia,
and the right os calcis. Of No. 2 we have the vault of the skull, two
portions of the maxilla with teeth, loose teeth belonging to lower jaw,
fragments of the scapulæ, the left clavicle, imperfect humeri, the shaft of
the right radius, a left femur, the left os calcis, and the left astragalus.
The separation of the bones, however, is not yet satisfactory. The jaw of
No. 1 is well-preserved, except in the region of the coronoids and
condyles, which makes any position we may give it more or less
arbitrary. The skull of this specimen is almost the replica of the
Neanderthal skull, except that the forehead is lower and more sloping.
But No. 1 has a trace of chin prominence and in this it resembles modern
skulls. No. 2 has a higher forehead and the cranial vault is higher and
more spacious.
In both skeletons the radius and femur show a peculiar curvature, and
in both, too, the arms and legs must have been very short. Hence the men
of Spy are described as having been only partially erect, and as having
had bowed thighs and bent knees. The source of this modification,
however, is not a surviving pithecoid atavism, but a non-inheritable
adaptation acquired through the habitual attitude or posture maintained
in stalking game—“Now we know,” says Dwight, “that this feature,
which is certainly an ape-like one, implies simply that the race was one
of those with the habit of ‘squatting,’ which implies that the body hangs
from the knees, not touching the ground for hours together. As a matter
of course we look for this in savage tribes.” (“Thoughts of a Catholic
Anatomist,” p. 168.) The same may be said of the receding chin, which,
as we have seen, is also an acquired adaptation. The same, finally, is true
of the prominent brow ridges, which are not pithecoid, but are, as
Klaatsch has pointed out, related to the size of the eye sockets, and
consequently the result of an adaptation of early palæolithic man to the
life of a hunter, a natural sequel of the very marked development of his
sense of sight. Similar brow ridges, though not quite so prominent, occur
among modern Australian blacks.
Nor are the remains as typically Neanderthaloid as Keith and others
(who wish to see in palæolithic men a distinct human species) could
desire. No. 1, as we have seen, though almost a replica of the
Neanderthal skull-cap, has a trace of chin prominence in the mandible.
No. 2, though the chin is recessive, has a higher forehead and higher and
more spacious cranial vault than the Neanderthal Man. “On the whole,”
says Hrdlička, “it may be said that No. 2, while in some respects still
very primitive, represents morphologically a decided step from the
Neanderthaloid to the present-day type of the human cranium.”
(Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 525.)
(8) The Men of Krapina: In the cave, or rather rock shelter, of Krapina,
in northern Croatia, beside the small stream Kaprinica which now flows
82 feet below the cave, K. Gorjanovič-Kramberger, Professor of geology
and palæontology at the University of Zagreb, found, in the year 1899,
ten or twelve skulls in fragments, a large number of teeth, and many
other defective parts of skeletons. All told, they represent at least
fourteen different individuals. The bones are in a bad state of
preservation, and show traces of burning, some of them being calcined.
The bones were associated with objects of Mousterian industry, and
bones of extinct animals such as Rhinoceros merckii, Ursus spelaeus,
Bos primigenius, etc. The aforesaid Rhinoceros is an older type than the
Rhinoceros tichorhinus associated with the men of Spy, and implies a hot
climate, wherein the Rhinoceros merckii managed to persist for a longer
time than in the north. Hence the remains are thought to belong to the
last Interglacial period.
In general, the bones show the same racial characteristics as those of
Neanderthal and Spy, though they are said to be of a perceptibly more
modern type than the latter. They were men of short stature and strong
muscular development. “The crania,” says Hrdlička, “were of good size
externally, but the brain cavities were probably below the present
average. The vault of the skull was of good length and at the same time
fairly broad, so that the cephalic index, at least in some of the
individuals, was more elevated than usual in the crania of early man.”
(Loc. cit., pp. 530, 531.) The reader must take Hrdlička’s use of the word
“usual” with “the grain of salt” necessitated in view of the scanty number
of specimens whence such inductive generalizations are derived. The
pronounced and complete supraorbital arcs characteristic of the
Neanderthaloid type occur in this group also, though in a less marked
manner. The stone implements are evidence of the intelligence of these
men.
(9) The Le Moustier Man: This specimen, Homo mousteriensis
Hauseri, was found by Prof. O. Hauser in the “lower Moustier Cave” at
Le Moustier in the valley of the Vézère, Department of Dordogne in
France, during the March of 1908. It consists of the complete skull and
other skeletal parts of a youth of about 15 years. At this age, the sex
cannot be determined from the bones alone. Obermaier assigns these
bones to the Fourth Glacial period. Prof. George Grant MacCurdy’s
anthropological evaluation is the following: “The race characters ... are
not so distinct (i.e. at the age of 15 years) as they would be at full
maturity; but they point unmistakably to the type of Neanderthal, Spy,
and Krapina—the so-called Homo primigenius which now also becomes
Homo mousteriensis. It was a rather stocky type, robust and of a low
stature. The arms and legs were relatively short, especially the forearm
and from the knee down, as is the case among the Eskimo. Ape-like
characters are noticeable in the curvature of the radius and of the femur,
the latter being also rounder in section than is the case with Homo
sapiens. In the retreating forehead, prominent brow ridges, and
prognathism (i.e. projection of the jaws) it is approached to some extent
by the modern Australian. The industry associated with this skeleton is
that typical of the Mousterian epoch.” (Loc. cit., p. 573.) As we have
already seen, the so-called ape-like features are simply acquired
adaptations to the hunter’s life, and, if inheritable characters, they do not
exceed the limits of a varietal mutation. That the Mousterian men were
endowed with the same intelligence as ourselves, appears from the
evidences of solemn burial which surround the remains of this youth of
15 years, and prove, as Klaatsch points out, that these men of the Glacial
period were persuaded of their own immortality. The head reclined on a
pillow of earth, which still retains the impression of the youth’s cheek,
the body having been laid on its side. Around the corpse are the best
examples of the stone implements of the period, the parents having
buried their choicest possession with the corpse of their son.
(10) The La Chapelle Man: On August 3, 1908, the Abbés J. and A.
Bouyssonie and L. Bardon, assisted by Paul Bouyssonie (a younger
brother of the first two), discovered palæolithic human remains, which
are also assigned to the Neanderthal group. The locality of the discovery
was the village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, 22 kilometers south of the
town of Brive, in the department of Corrèze, in southern France. In the
side of a moderate elevation, 200 yards south of the aforesaid village,
and beyond the left bank of a small stream, the Sourdoire, there is a cave
now known as the Cave of La Chapelle-aux-Saints. It was here, on the
above-mentioned date, that the priests discovered the bones of a human
skeleton surrounded by unmistakable evidences of solemn burial. “The
body lay on its back, with the head to the westward, the latter being
surrounded by stones.... About the body were many flakes of quartz and
flint, some fragments of ochre, broken animal bones, etc.” (Hrdlička.)
Another token of burial is the rectangular pit, in which the remains were
found. It is sunk to a depth of 30 to 40 centimeters in the floor of the
cavern.
“They (the remains) were covered,” says Prof. G. G. MacCurdy, “by a
deposit intact 30 to 40 centimeters thick, consisting of a magma of bone,
of stone implements, and of clay. The stone implements belong to a pure
Mousterian industry. While some pieces suggest a vague survival of
Acheulian implements (i.e. from the cool latter half of the Third
Interglacial period), others presage the coming of the Aurignacian (close
of last Glacial period). Directly over the human skull were the foot
bones, still in connection, of a bison—proof that the piece had been
placed there with the flesh still on, and proof, too, that the deposit had
not been disturbed. Two hearths were noted also, and the fact that there
were no implements of bone, the industry differing in this respect from
that of La Quina and Petit-Puymoyen (Charente), as well as at
Wildkirchli, Switzerland.
“The human bones include the cranium and lower jaw (broken, but the
pieces nearly all present and easily replaced in exact position), a few
vertebræ and long bones, several ribs, phalanges, and metacarpals,
clavicle, astragalus, calcaneum, parts of scaphoid, ilium, and sacrum.
The ensemble denotes an individual of the male sex whose height was
about 1.60 meters. The condition of the sutures and of the jaws proves
the skull to be that of an old man. The cranium is dolichocephalic, with
an index of 75. It is said to be flatter in the frontal region than those of
Neanderthal and Spy.” (Loc. cit., p. 574.)
The associated remains of fossil animals comprise the horse, reindeer,
bison, Rhinoceros tichorinus, etc., and, according to Hrdlička, “indicate
that the deposits date from somewhere near the middle of the glacial
epoch.” (Loc. cit., p. 539.) The discoverers turned over the skeleton to
Marcellin Boule of the Paris Museum of Natural History for cleaning
and reconstruction. It is the first instance of a palæolithic man, in which
the basal parts of the skull, including the foramen magnum, were
recovered. Professor Boule estimates the cranial capacity as being
something between 1,600 and 1,620 c.cm. He found the lower part of the
face to be prognathic, but not excessively so, the vault like the
Neanderthal cranium, but larger, the occiput broad and protruding, the
supraorbital arch prominent and complete, the nasal process broad, the
forehead low, and the mandible stout and chinless, though not sloping
backward at the symphysis.
Alluding to the rectangular burial pit in the cave, Hrdlička remarks:
“The depression was clearly made by the primitive inhabitants or visitors
of the cave for the body and the whole represents very plainly a regular
burial, the most ancient intentional burial thus far discovered.”
(Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 539.)
The specimens of Neanderthal, Spy, La Naulette, Krapina, Le
Moustier and La Chapelle, as we have seen, are the principal remains
said to represent the Neanderthal type, which, according to Keith and
others, is a distinct human species. As Aurignacian Man (assigned to the
close of the “Old Stone Age,” or Glacial epoch), including the Grimaldi
or Negroid as well as the Crô-Magnon type, are universally
acknowledged to belong to the species Homo sapiens, we need not
discuss them here. The same holds true, a fortiori, of Neolithic races
such as the Solutreans and the Magdalenians. The main issue for the
present is whether or not the Neanderthal type represents a distinct
species of human being.
Anent this question, Professor MacCurdy has the following: “Boule
estimated the capacity of the Chapelle-aux-Saints skull according to the
formulæ of Manouvrier, of Lee, and of Beddoe, obtaining results that
varied between 1,570 and 1,750 cubic centimeters. By the use of millet
and of shot an average capacity of 1,626 was obtained. Judging from
these figures the capacity of the crania of Neanderthal and Spy has been
underestimated by Schaaffhausen, Huxley, and Schwalbe. By its cranial
capacity, therefore, the Neanderthal race belongs easily in the class of
Homo sapiens. But we must distinguish between relative capacity and
absolute capacity. In modern man, where the transverse and antero-
posterior diameters are the same as in the skull of La Chapelle-aux-
Saints, the vertical diameter would be much greater, which would
increase the capacity to 1,800 cubic centimeters and even to 1,900 cubic
centimeters. Such voluminous modern crania are very rare. Thus
Bismarck, with horizontal cranial diameters scarcely greater than in the
man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, is said to have had a cranial capacity of
1,965 cubic centimeters.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 575.)
As for the structural features which are alleged to constitute a specific
difference between the Neanderthal type and modern man, v.g. the
prominent brow ridges, prognathism, retreating forehead, receding chin,
etc., all of these occur, albeit in a lesser degree, in modern Australian
blacks, who are universally acknowledged to belong to the species Homo
sapiens. Moreover, there is much fluctuation, as Kramberger has shown
from the examination of an enormous number of modern and fossil
skulls, in both the Neanderthal and the modern type; that is to say,
Neanderthaloid features occur in modern skulls and, conversely, modern
features occur in the skulls of Homo neanderthalensis (cf. “Biolog.
Zentralblatt,” 1905, p. 810; and Wasmann’s “Modern Biology,” Eng. ed.,
pp. 472, 473).
All the differences between modern and palæolithic man are
explicable, partly upon the basis of acquired adaptation, inasmuch as the
primitive mode of life pursued by the latter entailed the formation of
body-modifying habits very different from our present customs and
habits (viz. those of our modern civilized life). But these modifications,
not being inheritable, passed away with the passing of the habits that
gave rise to them. In part, however, the differences may be due to
heritable mutations, which gave rise to new races or varieties or
subspecies, such as Indo-Europeans, Mongolians, and Negroes. And, if
the evolutionary palæontologist insists on magnifying characters that are
well within the scope of mere factorial mutation into a specific
difference, we shall reply, with Bateson and Morgan, by denying his
competence to pronounce on taxonomic questions, without consulting
the verdict of the geneticist. Without breeding tests, the criterions of
intersterility and longevity cannot be applied, and breeding tests are
impossible in the case of fossils. As for an a priori verdict, no modern
geneticist, if called upon to give his opinion, would concede that the
differences which divide the modern and the Neanderthal types of men
exceed the limits of factorial mutations, or of natural varieties within the
same species. Here, then, it is a case of the wish being father to the
thought. So anxious are the materialistic evolutionists to secure evidence
of a connection between man and the brute, that no pretext is too
insignificant to serve as warrant for recognizing an “intermediate
species.”
Even waiving this point, however, there is no evidence at all that the
Neanderthal type is ancestral to the Crô-Magnon type. Both of these
races must have migrated into Europe from the east or the south, and we
have no proof whatever of genetic relationship between them. True,
attempts have been made to capitalize the fact that the Neanderthal race
was represented by specimens discovered in what were alleged to be the
older deposits of the Glacial epoch, but we have seen that the evidences
of antiquity are very precarious in the case of these Neanderthaloid
skeletons. Time-scales based on extinct species and characteristic stone
implements, etc., are always satisfactory to evolutionists, because they
can date their fossils and archæological cultures according to the theory
of evolution, but, for one whose confidence in the “reality” of evolution
is not so great, these palæontological chronometers are open to grave
suspicion.
If the horizon levels are not too finely graded, the difficulty of
accepting such a time-scale is not excessive. Hence we might be
prepared to accept the chronometric value of the division of fossiliferous
rocks into Groups, such as the Palæozoic, the Mesozoic, and the
Cænozoic, even though we are assured by Grabau that this time-scale is
“based on the changes of life, with the result that fossils alone determine
whether a formation belongs to one or the other of these great divisions”
(“Principles of Stratigraphy,” p. 1103), but when it comes to projecting
an elaborate scheme of levels or horizons into Pleistocene deposits on
the dubious basis of index fossils and “industries,” our credulity is not
equal to the demands that are made upon it. And this is particularly true
with reference to fossil men. Man has the geologically unfortunate habit
of burying his dead. Other fossils have been entombed on the spot where
they died, and therefore belong where we find them. But it is otherwise
with man. In Hilo, Hawaii, the writer heard of a Kanaka, who was buried
to a depth of 80 feet, having stipulated this sort of burial through a
special disposition in his will. His purpose, in so doing, was to preclude
the possibility of his bones ever being disturbed by a plough or other
instrument. Nor have we any right to assume that indications of burial
will always be present in a case of this nature. We may, on the contrary,
assume it as a general rule that human remains are always more recent
than the formations in which they are found.
Be that as it may, the evidences for the antiquity of the Neanderthaloid
man prove, at most, that he was prior to the Crô-Magnon man in Europe,
but they do not prove that the former was prior to the latter absolutely.
Things may, for all we know, have been just the reverse in Asia. Hence
we have no ground for regarding the Man of Neanderthal as ancestral to
the race of artists, who frescoed the caves of France and Spain. In fact, to
the unprejudiced mind the Neanderthal type conveys the impression of a
race on the downward path of degeneration rather than an embodiment
of the promise of better things. “There is another view,” says Dwight, “
... though it is so at variance with the Zeitgeist that little is heard of it.
May it not be that many low forms of man, archaic as well as
contemporary, are degenerate races? We are told everything about
progress; but decline is put aside. It is impossible to construct a tolerable
scheme of ascent among the races of man; but cannot dark points be
made light by this theory of degeneration? One of the most obscure, and
to me most attractive of questions, is the wiping out of old civilizations.
That it has occurred repeatedly, and on very extensive scales, is as
certain as any fact in history. Why is it not reasonable to believe that
bodily degeneration took place in those fallen from a higher estate, who,
half-starved and degraded, returned to savagery? Moreover, the workings
of the soul would be hampered by a degenerating brain. For my part I
believe the Neanderthal man to be a specimen of a race, not arrested in
its upward climb, but thrown down from a higher position.” (Op. cit., pp.
169, 170.)
The view, however, that the Neanderthaloid type had degenerated
from a previous higher human type was not at all in accord with the then
prevalent opinion that this type was far more ancient than any other. And
Dwight himself admitted the force of the “objection ... that the
Neanderthal race was an excessively old one and that skeletons of the
higher race which, according to the view which I have offered, must
have existed at the same time as the degenerate ones, are still to be
discovered.” (Op. cit., p. 170.) In fact, the Neanderthal ancestry of the
present human race was so generally accepted that, in the very year in
which Dwight’s book appeared, Sir Arthur Keith declared: “The
Neanderthal type represents the stock from which all modern races have
arisen.” Time, however, as Dr. James Walsh remarked (America, Dec.
15, 1917, pp. 230, 231), has triumphantly vindicated the expectations of
Professor Dwight. For in his latest book, “The Antiquity of Man” (1916),
Sir Arthur Keith has a chapter of Conclusions, in which the following
recantation appears: “We were compelled to admit,” he owns, “that men
of the modern type had been in existence long before the Neanderthal
type.”
But, even if it were true that savagery preceded civilization in Europe,
such could not have been the case everywhere; for it is certain that
civilization and culture of a comparatively high order were imported into
Europe before the close of the Old Stone Age. The Hungarian Lake-
dwellings show that culture of a high type existed in the New Stone Age.
These two ages are regarded as prehistoric in Europe, though in America
the Stone Age belongs to history. It is also possible that in Europe much
of the Stone Age was coëval with the history of civilized nations, and
that it may be coincident with, instead of prior to, the Bronze Age, which
seems to have begun in Egypt, and which belongs unquestionably to
history. And here we may be permitted to remark that history gives the
lie to the evolutionary conceit that civilized man has arisen from a
primitive state of barbarism. History begins almost contemporaneously
in many different centers, such as Egypt, Babylonia, Chaldea, China, and
Crete, about 5,000 or 6,000 years ago, and, as far back as history goes,
we find the record of high civilizations existing side by side with a
coëval barbarism. Barbarism is historically a state of degeneration and
stagnation, and history knows of no instance of a people sunk in
barbarism elevating itself by its own efforts to higher stages of
civilization. Always civilization has been imposed upon barbarians from
without. Savages, so far as history knows them, have never become
civilized, save through the intervention of some contemporary civilized
nation. History is one long refutation of the Darwinian theory of constant
and inevitable progress. The progress of civilization is not subsequent,
but prior, or parallel, to the retrogression of barbarism.
That savagery and barbarism represent a degenerate, rather than a
primitive, state, is proved by the fact that savage tribes, in general,
despite their brutish degradation, possess languages too perfectly
elaborated and systematized to be accounted for by the mental
attainments of the men who now use them, languages which testify
unmistakably to the superior intellectual and cultural level of their
civilized ancestors, to whom the initial construction of such marvelous
means of communication was due. “It is indeed one of the paradoxes of
linguistic science,” says Dr. Edwin Sapir, in a lecture delivered April 1,
1911, at the University of Pennsylvania, “that some of the most
complexly organized languages are spoken by so-called primitive
peoples, while, on the other hand, not a few languages of relatively
simple structure are found among peoples of considerable advance in
culture. Relatively to the modern inhabitants of England, to cite but one
instance out of an indefinitely large number, the Eskimos must be
considered as rather limited in cultural development. Yet there is just as
little doubt that in complexity of form the Eskimo language goes far
beyond English. I wish merely to indicate that, however we may indulge
in speaking of primitive man, of a primitive language in the true sense of
the word we find nowhere a trace.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p.
573.) Pierre Duponceau makes a similar observation with reference to
the logical and orderly organization of the Indian languages: “The
dialects of the Indian tribes,” he says, “appear to be the work of
philosophers rather than of savages.” (Cited by F. A. Tholuck, “Verm.
Schr.,” ii, p. 260.)
It was considerations of this sort which led the great philologist Max
Müller to ridicule Darwin’s conception of primitive man as a savage. “As
far as we can trace the footsteps of man,” he writes, “even on the lowest
strata of history, we see that the Divine gift of a sound and sober intellect
belonged to him from the very first; and the idea of humanity emerging
slowly from the depths of an animal brutality can never be maintained
again in our century. The earliest work of art wrought by the human
mind—more ancient than any literary document, and prior even to the
first whisperings of tradition—the human language, forms one
uninterrupted chain, from the first dawn of history down to our own
times. We still speak the language of the first ancestors of our race; and
this language with its wonderful structures, bears witness against such
gratuitous theories. The formation of language, the composition of roots,
the gradual discrimination of meanings, the systematic elaboration of
grammatic forms—all this working which we can see under the surface
of our own speech attests from the very first the presence of a rational
mind, of an artist as great at least as his work.” (“Essays,” vol. I, p. 306.)
History and philology are far more solid and certain as a basis for
inference than are “index fossils” and prehistoric archæology; and the
lesson taught by history and philology is that primitive man was not a
savage, but a cultured being endowed with an intellect equal, if not
superior, to our own.
But, even if we grant the priority, which evolutionists claim for the
Old Stone Age, there are not absent even from that cultural level evident
tokens of artistic genius and high intellectual gifts. Speaking of the
pictures in the caves of Altamira, of Marsoulas in the Haute Garonne,
and of Fonte de Gaume in the Dordogne, the archæologist Sir Arthur
Evans says: “These primeval frescoes display not only consummate
mastery of natural design, but an extraordinary technical resource. Apart
from the charcoal used in certain outlines, the chief coloring matter was
red and yellow ochre, mortars and palettes for the preparation of which
have come to light. In single animals the tints varied from black to dark
and ruddy brown or brilliant orange, and so, by fine gradations, to paler
nuances, obtained by scraping and washing. Outlines and details are
brought out by white incised lines, and the artists availed themselves
with great skill of the reliefs afforded by convexities of the rock surface.
But the greatest marvel of all is that such polychrome masterpieces as the
bisons, standing and couchant, or with limbs huddled together, of the
Altamira Cave, were executed on the ceilings of inner vaults and
galleries where the light of day has never penetrated. Nowhere is there
any trace of smoke, and it is clear that great progress in the art of
artificial illumination had already been made. We know that stone lamps,
decorated in one case with the engraved head of an ibex, were already in
existence. Such was the level of artistic attainment in southwestern
Europe, at a modest estimate, some 10,000 years earlier than the most
ancient monuments of Egypt or Chaldæa!” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for
1916, pp. 429, 430.) While reaffirming our distrust of the undocumented
chronology of “prehistory,” we cite these examples of palæolithic art as a
proof of the fact that everywhere the manifestation of man’s physical
presence coincides with the manifestation of his intelligence, and that
neither in history nor in prehistory have we any evidence of the existence
of a bestial or irrational man preceding Homo sapiens, as we know him
today. It is interesting to note in this connection that a certain J. Taylor
claims to have found a prehistoric engraving of a mastodon on a bone
found in a rock shelter known as Jacobs’ Cavern in Missouri (cf.
Science, Oct. 14, 1921, p. 357). Incidents of this sort must needs dampen
the enthusiasm of those who are overeager to believe in the enormous
antiquity of the Old Stone Age in Europe.
(11) The Rhodesian Man: In 1921 a human skull was found by miners
in the “Bone Cave” of the Broken Hill Mine in southern Rhodesia. It was
associated with human and animal bones, as well as very crude
instruments (knives and scrapers) in flint and quartz. It was found at a
depth of 60 feet below the surface. The lower jaw was missing, and has
not been recovered. It was sent to the British Museum, South
Kensington, where it is now preserved. Doctor Smith-Woodward has
examined and described it. “The skull is in some features the most
primitive one that has ever been found; at the same time it has many
points of resemblance to (or even identity with) that of modern man.”
(Science, Feb. 3, 1922, p. 129.) The face is intact. The forehead is low,
and the brow ridges are more pronounced than in any known fossil
human skull. The prognathism of the upper jaw is very accentuated. The
cranium is very flat on top and broad in the back. “Its total capacity is
surprisingly large. At least one prominent authority thinks that this man
had quite as much gray matter as the average modern man.” (Loc. cit.,
pp. 129, 130.) Woodward, however, estimates the cranial capacity of this
skull as 1280 c.cm. The neck must have had powerful muscles. The nasal
bone is prominent and Neanderthaloid in character. “The wisdom tooth is
reduced in size—another point in common with modern man and never
found before in a fossil skull.” (Ibidem.) The palate and the teeth in
general are like those of existing men. The femur is not curved like that
of the Neanderthal man—“In contrast to the Neanderthal man who is
supposed to have walked in a crouching position (because of the rather
curved femur and other bits of evidence), this man is believed to have
maintained the upright position, because the femur is relatively straight
and when fitted to the tibia (which was also found) presents a perfectly
good, straight leg.” (Ibidem.) According to the writer we have quoted,
Dr. Elliot Smith entertained hopes that the Rhodesian man might
represent the “missing link” in man’s ancestry, leaving the Neanderthal
man as an offshoot from the main ancestral trunk. No comment is
necessary. The skull may be a pathological specimen, but, in any case, it
is evidently human as regards its cranial capacity. The remains,
moreover, serve to emphasize the fluctuational character of the so-called
Homo primigenius type, being a mixture of modern and Neanderthaloid
features. They are not fossilized and present a recent appearance. Hence,
as B. Windle suggests, they may have fallen into the cave through a
crack, and may be modern rather than prehistoric.
(12) The Foxhall Man: This is the earliest known prehistoric man. He
is known to us, however, only through “his flint instruments partly
burned with fire, found near the little hamlet of Foxhall, near Norwich,
on the east coast of England. These flints, discovered in 1921, constitute
the first proofs that man of sufficient intelligence to make a variety of
flint implements and to use fire existed in Britain at the close of the Age
of Mammals; this is the first true Tertiary man ever found.” (Osborn:
Guide-leaflet to “The Hall of the Age of Man,” 2nd ed., 1923, p. 9.)
Osborn assigns the twelve kinds of flint instruments typical of the
Foxhallian culture to the Upper Pliocene epoch. R. A. Macalister,
however, denies that the deposits are Tertiary. Abbé Henri Breuil’s
verdict was undecided. In any case, the Foxhallian culture proves that the
earliest of prehistoric men were intelligent like ourselves.
Summa summarum: So far as science knows, only one human species
has ever existed on the earth, and that is Homo sapiens. All the alleged
connecting links between men and apes are found, on careful
examination, to be illusory. When not wholly ambiguous in view of their
inadequate preservation and fragmentary character, they are (as regards
both mind and body) distinctly human, like the Neanderthal man, or they
are purely simian, like the Pithecanthropus, or they are heterogeneous
combinations of human and simian bones, like the Eoanthropus
Dawsoni.[18] “With absolute certainty,” says Hugues Obermaier, “we can
only say that man of the Quaternary period differed in no essential
respect from man of the present day. In no way did he go beyond the
limits of variation of the normal human body.” (“The Oldest Remains of
the Human Body, etc.,” Vienna, 1905.) The so-called Homo primigenius,
therefore, is not a distinct species of human being, but merely an ancient
race that is, at most, a distinct variety or subspecies of man. In spite of
tireless searching, no traces of a bestial, irrational man have been
discovered. Indeed, man whom nature has left naked, defenseless,
unarmed with natural weapons, and deficient in instinct, has no other
resource than his reason and could never have survived without it. To
imagine primitive man in a condition analogous to that of the idiot is
preposterous. “For other animals,” says St. Thomas of Aquin, “nature
has prepared food, garments of fur, means of defense, such as teeth,
horns, and hoofs, or at least swiftness in flight. But man is so constituted
that, none of these things having been prepared for him by nature, reason
is given him in their stead, reason by which through his handiwork he is
enabled to prepare all these things.... Moreover, in other animals there is
inborn a certain natural economy respecting those things which are
useful or hurtful, as the lamb by nature knows the wolf to be its enemy.
Some animals also by natural instinct are aware of the medicinal
properties of herbs and of other things which are necessary for life. Man,
however, has a natural knowledge of these things which are necessary
for life only in general, as being able to arrive at the knowledge of the
particular necessities of human life by way of inference from general
principles.” (“De regim. princ.,” l. I, c. I.) As a matter of fact, man is
never found apart from evidences of his intelligence. The Neanderthaloid
race, with their solemn burials and implements of bone and stone,
exemplify this truth no less than the palæolithic artists of the Cave of
Altamira.
§ 5. The Edict of the American Association

In the Cincinnati meeting (1923-1924) of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, a number of resolutions were passed
regarding the subject of evolution. True, the session in which these
resolutions were passed was but sparsely attended, and packed, for the
most part, with the ultra-partisans of transformism. Nevertheless, it is to
be regretted that the dignity of this eminent and distinguished body was
so unfittingly compromised by the fulmination of rhetorical anathemas
against W. J. Bryan and his Round Head adherents. Among the
resolutions, of which we have spoken, the following dictatorial
proclamation occurs: “The evidences in favor of the evolution of man are
sufficient to convince every scientist in the world.”
This authoritative decree is both rash and intolerant. The resolution-
committee of the American Association is by no means infallible, and, in
the absence of infallibility, no group of men should be so unmindful of
their own limitations as to strive to make their subjective views binding
upon others. Scientific questions are not settled by authority, but
exclusively by means of irresistible evidence, which is certainly absent
in the present case. Moreover, the declaration in question is untrue; for
many of the foremost palæontologists and anthropologists of the day
confess their complete ignorance, as scientists, with respect to the origin
of man.
Dr. Clark Wissler, for example, who is the Curator-in-Chief of the
Anthropological section of the American Museum of Natural History in
New York City, made, in the course of an interview published in the New
York American of April 2, 1918, the following statement: “Man, like the
horse or elephant, just happened anyhow, so far as has been discovered
yet. As far as science has discovered, there always was a man—some not
so developed, but still human beings in all their functions, much as we
are today.” Asked by the reporter, whether this did not favor the idea of
an abrupt, unheralded appearance of man on earth, Doctor Wissler
replied: “Man came out of a blue sky as far as we have been able to
delve back.” Fearing lest the reporter might have sensationalized his
words, the writer took occasion to question the learned anthropologist on
the subject during the Pan Pacific Conference held at Honolulu, Hawaii
(Aug. 2-20, 1920). His answer was that the foregoing citations were
substantially correct.
The same verdict is given by the great palæontologist, Prof. W.
Branco, Director of the Institute of Geology and Palæontology at the
University of Berlin. In his discourse on “Fossil Man” delivered August
16, 1901, before the Fifth International Zoölogical Congress at Berlin,
Branco said, with reference to the origin of man: “Palæontology tells us
nothing on the subject—it knows no ancestors of man.” The well-known
palæontologist Karl A. von Zittel reached the same conclusion. He says
somewhere (probably in his “Grundzüge der Paläontologie”): “Such
material as this (the discovered remains of fossil men) throws no light
upon the question of race and descent. All the human bones of
determinable age that have come down to us from the European
Diluvium, as well as all the skulls discovered in caves, are identified by
their size, shape, and capacity as belonging to Homo sapiens, and are
fine specimens of their kind. They do not by any means fill up the gap
between man and the ape.” Joseph Le Conte repeats the identical refrain.
In the revised Fairchild edition (1903) of his “Elements of Geology” we
read: “The earliest men yet found are in no sense connecting links
between man and ape. They are distinctly human.” (Ch. VI, p. 638.)
Replying to Haeckel, who in his “Welträtsel” proclaims man’s descent
from pithecoid primates to be an historical fact, J. Reinke, the biologist
of Kiel, declares: “We are merely having dust thrown in our eyes when
we read in a widely circulated book by Ernst Haeckel the following
words: ‘That man is immediately descended from apes, and more
remotely from a long line of lower vertebrates, remains established as an
indubitable historic fact, fraught with important consequences.’ It is
absurd to speak of anything as a fact when experience lends it no
support.” (“Haeckel’s Monism and Its Supporters,” Leipzig, 1907, p. 6.)
The sum-total, in fact, of scientific knowledge concerning the origin of
the human body is contained in the saying of the geologist, Sir Wm.
Dawson, President of McGill University: “I know nothing about the
origin of man, except what I am told in the Scripture—that God created
him. I do not know anything more than that, and I do not know of
anyone who does.”
In view of this uncertainty and ignorance regarding the origin of the
human body, it is extremely unethical to strive to impose the theory of
man’s bestial origin by the sheer weight of scientific authority and
prestige. Conscientious scientists would never venture to abuse in such a
fashion the confidence which the people at large place in their
assurances. Hence those who respect their honor and dignity as scientists
should refrain from dogmatizing on the undemonstrated animal origin of
man, however much they may personally fancy this theory. “We cannot
teach,” says Virchow, “nor can we regard as one of the results of
scientific research, the doctrine that man is descended from the ape or
from any other animal.” (“The Liberty of Science,” p. 30, et seq.) And
Professor Reinke of Kiel concludes: “The only statement consistent with
her dignity, that Science can make, is to say that she knows nothing
about the origin of man.” (Der Türmer, V, Oct., 1902, Part I, p. 13.)
A slave, we are told (Tertul., Apolog. 33), rode in the triumphal chariot
of the Roman conqueror, to whisper ever and anon in his ear: Hominem
memento te!—“Remember that thou art a man!” It is unfortunate that no
similar warning is sounded when the tone of scientific individuals or
organizations threatens to become unduly imperious and intolerant. This
tendency, however, to forget limitations and to usurp the prerogative of
infallibility is sometimes rebuked by other reminders. The writer recalls
an instance, which happened in connection with the Pan Pacific
Conference at Honolulu during the August of 1920.
The Conference was attended by illustrious scientists from every land
bordering upon the Pacific. After the preliminary sessions, the delegates
paid a visit to the famous volcano of Kilauea. Doctor T. A. Jaggar, Jr.,
vulcanologist and Director of the United States Observatory at Kilauea,
acted as guide, the writer himself being one of the party. In the course of
our tour of inspection, we came to the extinct volcano of Kenakakoe.
There a number of volcanic bombs, some shattered and some intact,
were pointed out to us. For the benefit of readers, who may not know, I
may state that a volcanic bomb originates as a fragment of foreign
material, e.g. a stone, which, falling into a volcano, becomes coated with
an external shell of lava. In addition to the bombs, certain holes in the
soil were shown to us, which Doctor Jaggar, evidently under the
influence of military imagery suggested by the then recent European
War, described as “shell-craters” dug by the aforesaid volcanic bombs.
Doctor Jaggar accounted for the bombs and craters by a very
ingenious theory. In 1790, he said, the year in which Kamehameha I was
contending with Keoua for the mastery of the large island of Hawaii, the
only explosive eruption of Kilauea known to history occurred, and it was
during this eruption (which destroyed part of Keoua’s army) that the
bombs found at Kenakakoe were ejected from the above-mentioned
volcano. It was then, we were informed, that these bombs hurtling
through the air in giant trajectories from Kilauea struck the ground and
scooped out the “shell-craters” at Kenakakoe. Some of them, it appeared,
did not remain in the craters, but rebounded to strike again on the rocks
beyond. Of the latter, part were shattered, while others withstood the
force of the second impact. The whole party was much impressed by the
grandeur of this vivid description, and some of the scientists were at
great pains to photograph the craters as awe-inspiring vestiges of the
mighty bombardment wrought in times past by Nature’s volcanic
artillery.
When I returned to Hilo, I happened to mention to Brother Matthias
Newell some misgivings which I had felt concerning the size and
appearance of the so-called “shell-craters.” Brother Newell, a member of
the Marist Congregation and quite a scientist in his way, is famous in the
Islands as the discoverer of a fungus, by which the Japanese Beetle, a
local pest, has been largely exterminated. For several years, prior to the
advent of Doctor Jaggar and the United States Observatory, he had
studied extensively the famous volcano on the slopes of Mauna Loa. On
hearing my narrative of the foregoing incident, Brother Newell was
curious to know the exact locality, and burst into a hearty laugh as soon
as I mentioned Kenakakoe. He himself, he told me, in company with
Brother Henry, had frequently dug for bombs at Kenakakoe. When
successful in their quest, the two were wont to carry the volcanic bomb
to the rocks, and to break it open for the purpose of examining the inner
core. Some of the bombs, however, escaped this fate through being too
resistent to the hammer. The holes, needless to say, were not “shell-
craters” scooped by volcanic bombs, but ordinary excavations dug by
prosaic spades. Such was the simple basis of fact upon which the
elaborate superstructure of Jaggar’s theory had been reared! Though
Jaggar was, in a sense, entirely blameless, his theory was pure fiction
from start to finish. No scientist present, however, took exception to it.
On the contrary, all of them appeared perfectly satisfied with his
pseudoscientific explanation.
If the foregoing incident conveys any lesson, it is this, that neither
singly nor collectively are scientists exempt from error, especially when
they deal with a remote past, which no one has observed. The attempt to
reconstruct the past by means of inference alone produces, not history,
but romance. Doctor Gregory’s genealogy of Man displayed in the
American Museum is quite as much the fruit of imagination as Jaggar’s
Kilauean fantasy. The sham pedigree bears like witness to the ingenuity
of the human mind, but, if anyone is tempted by its false show of science
to take it seriously, let him think of the bombs of Kenakakoe.
AFTERWORD
With the close of the nineteenth century the hour hand of biological
science had completed another revolution. One after another, the classic
systems of evolution had passed into the discard, as its remorseless
progress registered their doom. The last of these systems, De-
Vriesianism, enjoyed a meteoric vogue in the first years of the present
century, but it, too, has gone into eclipse with the rise of rediscovered
Mendelism. Notwithstanding all these reverses, however, the
evolutionary theory still continues to number a host of steadfast
adherents.
Some of its partisans uphold it upon antiquated grounds. Culturally
speaking, such men still live in the days of Darwin, and fail to realize
that much water has passed under the bridge since then. It has other
protagonists, however, who are thoroughly conversant with modern data,
and fully aware, in consequence, of the inadequacy of all existent
formulations of the evolutional hypothesis. Minds of the latter type are
proof, apparently, against any sort of disillusionment, and it is manifest
that their attitude is determined by some consideration other than the
actual results of research.
This other consideration is monistic metaphysics. In defect of factual
confirmation, evolution is demonstrated aprioristically from the principle
of the minimum. The scope of this methodological principle is to
simplify or unify causation by dispensing with all that is superfluous in
the way of explanation. In olden days, it went by the name of Occam’s
Razor and was worded thus: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter
necessitatem—“Things are not to be multiplied without necessity.”
Evolution meets the requirements of this principle. It simplifies the
problem of organic origins by reducing the number of ancestors to a
minimum. Therefore, argues the evolutionist, evolution must be true.
As an empirical rule, the principle of the minimum is, no doubt,
essential to the scientific method. To erect it into a metaphysical axiom,
however, is preposterous; for simple explanations are not necessarily true
explanations. In the rôle of aprioristic metaphysics, the principle of
continuity is destructive, and tends to plane down everything to the dead
level of materialistic monism. For those who transcendentalize it, it
becomes the principle “that everything is ‘nothing but’ something else,
probably inferior to it.” (Santayana.) To assert continuity, they are driven
to deny, or, at least, to leave unexplained and inexplicable, the obvious
novelty that emerges at each higher level of the cosmic scale. And thus it
comes to pass that intelligence is pronounced to be nothing but sense,
and sense to be nothing but physiology, and physiology to be nothing but
chemistry, and chemistry to be nothing but mechanics, until this
philosophical nihilism weeps at last for want of further opportunities of
devastation. Its exponents have an intense horror for abrupt transitions,
and resent the discovery of anything that defies resolution into terms of
mass and motion.
Evolution smooths the path for monism of this type by transforming
nature’s staircase into an inclined plane of imperceptible ascent. Hence
Dewey refers to evolution as a “clinching proof” of the continuity
hypothecated by the monist. For the latter, there is no hierarchy of
values, and all essential distinctions are abolished; for him nothing is
unique and everything is equally important. He affirms the democracy of
facts and is blind to all perspective in nature. He is, in short, the enemy
of all beauty, all spirituality, all culture, all morality, and all religion. He
substitutes neurons for the soul, and enthrones Natural Selection in the
place of the Creator. He sets up, in a word, the ideal of “an animalistic
man and a mechanistic universe,” and offers us evolution as a
demonstration of this “ideal.”
Vernon Kellogg objects to our indictment. “The evolutionist,” he says,
“does not like being called a bad man. He does not like being posted as
an enemy of poetry and faith and religion. He does not like being defined
as crassly materialist, a man exclusively of the earth earthy.” (Atlantic
Monthly, April 24, 1924, p. 490.) Apart from their object, the likes or
dislikes of an evolutionist are a matter of indifference. What we want to
know is whether his dislike is merely for the names, or whether it
extends to the reality denoted by these names. Human nature has a
weakness for euphemisms. Men may “want the game without the name,”
particularly when, deservedly or undeservedly, the name happens to have
an offensive connotation.
There are, no doubt, evolutionists who mingle enough dualism with
their philosophy to mitigate the most objectionable aspects of its basic
monism. In so doing, however, they are governed by considerations that
are wholly extraneous to evolutionary thought. Indeed, if we take
Kellogg’s words at their face value (that is, in a sense which he would
probably disclaim), it is in spite of his philosophy that the evolutionist is
a spiritualist. “And just as religion and cheating,” reasons Kellogg, “can
apparently be compassed in one man, so can one man be both
evolutionist and idealist.” (Loc. cit., p. 490.) If this comparison holds
true, the evolutionist can be an idealist only to the extent that he is
inconsistent or hypocritical, since under no other supposition could piety
and crime coëxist in one and the same person.
Be that as it may, the majority of evolutionists are avowed mechanists
and materialists, in all that concerns the explanation of natural
phenomena. “That there may be God who has put his Spirit into men”
(Kellogg, ibid., p. 491), they are condescendingly willing to concede.
And small credit to them for this; for who can disprove the existence of
God, or the spirituality of the human soul? Nevertheless, it is impossible,
they maintain, to be certain on these subjects. Natural science is in their
eyes the only form of human knowledge that has any objective validity.
Proofs of human spirituality they denounce as metaphysical, and
metaphysics is for them synonymous with “such stuff as dreams are
made of,” unworthy to be mentioned in the same breath with physical
science—“Es gibt für uns kein anderes Erkennen als das mechanische, ...
Nur mechanisch begreifen ist Wissenschaft.” (Du Bois-Reymond.)
In practice, therefore, if not in theory, the tendency of evolution has
been to unspiritualize and dereligionize the philosophy of its adherents, a
tendency which is strikingly exemplified in one of its greatest exponents,
Charles Darwin himself. The English naturalist began his scientific
career as a theist and a spiritualist. He ended it as an agnostic and a
materialist. His evolutionary philosophy was, by his own confession,
responsible for the transformation. “When thus reflecting,” he says, “I
feel compelled to look to a first cause having an intelligent mind in some
degree analogous to that of man, and I deserve to be called a Theist. This
conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I remember,
when I wrote the ‘Origin of Species’; and it is since that time that it has
very gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker. But then arises
the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been
developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals,
be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions? I can not pretend to
throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the
beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I, for one, must be content
to remain an Agnostic.” (“The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,”
edited by Francis Darwin, 1887, vol. I, p. 282.)
Darwin likewise exemplifies in his own person the destructive
influence exercised upon the æsthetic sense by exclusive adherence to
the monistic viewpoint. Having alluded in his autobiography to his
former predilection for poetry, music, and the beauties of nature, he
continues as follows: “But now for many years I cannot endure to read a
line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found that it
nauseated me. I have also lost my taste for pictures and music.... I retain
some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight
which it formerly did.... My mind seems to have become a kind of
machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts; ... if I
had to live my life again, I would have made it a rule to read some poetry
and listen to some music at least every week; for perhaps the parts of my
brain now atrophied would have been kept alive through use. The loss of
these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the
intellect, and more probably to the moral character by enfeebling the
emotional part of our nature.” (Op. cit., vol. I, pp. 81, 82.)
Evolution, we repeat, has brought us materialistic monism, in whose
barren soil nor faith, nor idealism, nor morality, nor poesy, nor art, nor
any of the finer things of life can thrive. To its dystelic and atomistic
view, Nature has ceased to be the vicar of God, and material things are
no longer sacramental symbols of eternal verities. It denies all design in
Nature, and dismembers all beauty into meaningless fragments. It is so
deeply engrossed in the contemplation of parts, that it has forgotten that
there is any such thing as a whole. The rose and the bird-of-paradise are
not ineffable messages from God to man; they are but accidental
aggregates of colloidal molecules fortuitously assembled in the
perpetual, yet aimless, flux of evolving matter.
From the standpoint of the moral and sociological consequences,
however, the gravest count against evolution is the seeming support
which this theory has given to the monistic conception of an animalistic
man. Darwin’s doctrine on the bestial origin of man brought no other
gain to natural science than the addition of one more unverified and
unverifiable hypothesis to its already extensive stock of unfounded
speculations. It did, however, work irreparable harm to millions of
unlearned and credulous persons, whose childlike confidence the
unscrupulous expounders of this doctrine have not hesitated to abuse.
The exaggerations and misrepresentations of the latter met with an all
too ready credence on the part of those who were not competent to
discriminate between theory and fact. The sequel has been a wholesale
abandonment of religious and moral convictions, which has ruined the
lives and blighted the happiness of countless victims.
Has it been worth while, we may well ask of the propounders of this
theory, to sacrifice so much in exchange for so little? The solid gain to
natural science has been negligible, but the consequences of the blow
unfairly dealt to morals and religion are incalculable and beyond the
possibility of repair. “Morals and Religion,” says Newman, “are not
represented to the intelligence of the world by intimations and notices
strong and obvious such as those which are the foundation of physical
science.... Instead of being obtruded on our notice, so that we cannot
possibly overlook them, they are the dictates either of Conscience or of
Faith. They are faint shadows and tracings, certain indeed, but delicate,
fragile, and almost evanescent, which the mind recognizes at one time,
not at another, discerns when it is calm, loses when it is in agitation. The
reflection of sky and mountains in the lake is proof that sky and
mountains are around it, but the twilight or the mist or the sudden
thunderstorm hurries away the beautiful image, which leaves behind it
no memorial of what it was.... How easily can we be talked out of our
clearest views of duty; how does this or that moral precept crumble into
nothing when we rudely handle it! How does the fear of sin pass off from
us, as quickly as the glow of modesty dies away from the countenance!
and then we say ‘It is all superstition.’ However, after a time, we look
around, and then to our surprise we see, as before, the same law of duty,
the same moral precepts, the same protest against sin, appearing over
against us, in their old places, as if they had never been brushed away,
like the Divine handwriting upon the wall at the banquet.” (“Idea of a
University,” pp. 513-515.)
Had evolutionary enthusiasts adhered more strictly to the facts, had
they proceeded in the spirit of scientific caution, had they shown, in fact,
even so much as a common regard for the simple truth, the “progress of
science” would not have been achieved at the expense of morals and
religion. As it is, this so-called progress has left behind a wake of
destruction in the shape of undermined convictions, blasted lives, crimes,
misery, despair, and suicide. It has, in short, contributed largely to the
present sinister and undeserved triumph of Materialism, Agnosticism,
and Pessimism, which John Talbot Smith has so fittingly characterized as
the three D’s of dirt, doubt, and despair. A little less sensationalism, a
little more conscientiousness, a little more of that admirable quality,
scientific caution, and the concord of faith and reason would have
become a truism instead of a problem. But such regrets are vain. The evil
effects are here to stay, and nothing can undo the past.
If man is but a higher kind of brute, if he has no unique, immortal
principle within him, if his free will is an illusion, if his conduct is the
necessary resultant of chemical reactions occurring in his protoplasm, if
he is nothing more than an automaton of flesh, a mere decaying
organism which is the sport of all the blind physical forces and stimuli
playing upon it, if he has no prospect of a future life of retribution, if he
is unaccountable to any higher authority, Divine or human, then morality
ceases to have a meaning, right and wrong lose their significance, virtue
and vice are all the same. The constancy of the martyr and the patriotism
of the fallen soldier become unintelligible folly, while a heartless and
infamous sensualism preying vulturelike upon the carrion of human
misery and corruption is to be reckoned the highest expression of
wisdom and efficiency. The grandest ideals that have inspired
enthusiasm and devotion in human breasts are but idle dreams and
worthless delusions. From a world which accepts this degraded view of
human nature all heroism and chivalry must vanish utterly; for it will
recognize no loftier incentives to action than pleasure and love of self.
Such doctrines, too, are essentially antisocial. They destroy the very
foundation of altruism. To seek immortality in the effects of one’s
unselfish deeds becomes ridiculous. For what assurance can we have that
the fruits of our sacrifice will be acceptable to a progressive posterity, or
what difference will our self-denial make, when the whole human
species shall have become extinct on the desolate surface of a dying
world? Without an adequate motivation for altruism, however, the
existence of society becomes impossible, since self-interest is not a
feasible substitute. To urge the observance of social laws on the ground
that they protect person, life, and property, will hardly appeal to men
who have no possessions to be protected nor a comfortable life to be
prolonged. Yet the major portion of mankind are in this category. For
such the laws can mean nothing more than artificial corruptions, of the
natural and primitive order of things introduced for the special benefit of
the rich and powerful.
Under circumstances of this sort, no plea avails to silence the heralds
of revolt. If there is no future life for the righting of present injustices,
then naught remains but to terminate the prosperity of the wicked here
and now. If there is no heaven for man beyond the grave, then it
behooves everyone to get all the enjoyment he can out of the present life.
It is high time, therefore, that this earthly heaven of mankind should
cease to be monopolized by a few coupon-holding capitalists and
become, instead, the property of the expropriated proletariat. Anarchy
and Socialism are the consequences which the logic of the situation
inexorably portends. The starving swine must hurl their bloated brethren
from the trough that the latter have heretofore reserved for themselves.
The sequel, of course, can be none other than the complete disintegration
of civilization and its ultimate disappearance in a hideous vortex of
carnage, rapine, and barbarity.
Nor is this prognosis based on pure conjecture. In proportion as these
pernicious doctrines have gained ground, modern society has become
infected with the virus of animalism, egoism, and perfidy; expediency
has been substituted for honor; and purity has been replaced by
prophylaxis. One could not, of course, expect to see a universal and
thoroughgoing application of these principles in the concrete. The
materialistic view of human nature is horribly unnatural, and, in practice,
would be quite unbearable. Natural human goodness and even the mere
instinct of self-preservation militate against a reduction to the concrete of
this inhuman conception, and these tend, in real life, to mitigate the evil
effects of its acceptance. Nevertheless, the actual consequences resulting
from the spread of evolutionary principles are so conspicuous and
appalling as to leave no doubt whatever of the deadly nature of this
philosophy.
Marxian Socialism has been called “scientific” for no other reason
than that it is based upon materialistic evolution, and this scientific
socialism has brought upon modern Russia a reign of terror, which
eclipses that of France in the bloodiest days of the Revolution. Eleanor
Marx, it will be remembered, after falling a victim to her father’s
teachings regarding “free love,” committed suicide. The same confession
of failure has been made by two recent editors of the socialist Appeal to
Reason (J. W. Wayland and J. O. Welday), both of whom committed
suicide. These are but a few of the many instances that might be cited to
show that the life philosophy inculcated by materialistic evolution is so
intolerably unnatural and revolting that neither society nor the individual
can survive within the lethal shadow of its baleful influence.
But may not the extreme materialism and pessimism of this view be
peculiar to the sordid and joyless outlook of the social malcontent? Does
not evolutionary thought conduce to something finer and more hopeful in
the case of the progressive and optimistic liberal? Vain hope! We cannot
console ourselves with any delusions on this score. Liberalism proclaims
the emancipation of humanity from all authority, and the rejection of a
future life of retribution is the indispensable premise of the doctrine that
makes man a law unto himself. Hence, wherever Liberalism controls the
tongues of educators, the human soul becomes a myth, religion a
superstition, and immortality an anodyne for mental weaklings. Strong-
minded truth-seekers are advised to abandon these irrational beliefs, and
to adopt the “New Religion,” which dispenses once for all with God and
the hereafter. “The new religion,” says Charles Eliot, ex-President of
Harvard, “will not attempt to reconcile people to present ills by the
promise of future compensation. I believe that the advent of just freedom
has been delayed for centuries by such promises. Prevention will be the
watchword of the new religion, and a skillful surgeon will be one of its
ministers. It cannot supply consolation as offered by old religions, but it
will reduce the need of consolation.” (“The New Religion.”)
Again, it may be objected that evolutionists, for all their agnosticism
and materialism, frequently put Christians to shame by their
irreproachably upright and moral lives. That they sometimes succeed in
doing this cannot be gainsaid. But they do so because they borrow their
moral standards from Christianity, and do not follow the logical
consequences of their own principles. Their morality, therefore, is
parasitic, as Balfour has wisely observed, and it will soon die out when
the social environment shall have been sufficiently de-Christianized.
“Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” is their proper
philosophy of life, only they have not the courage of their convictions.
For the rest, their philosophical convictions have nothing in common
with the moral standards which they actually observe. In fact, not only
does the monism of evolutionary science fail to motivate the Christian
code of morals, but it is radically and irreconcilably opposed to all that
Christianity stands for. Hartmann, a modern philosopher, notes with grim
satisfaction the clash of the two viewpoints, and predicts (with what,
perhaps, is premature assurance) the ultimate triumph of “modern
progress.” “Many there are,” he tells us, “who speak and write of the
struggle of civilization, but few there are who realize that this struggle is
the last desperate stand of the Christian ideal before its final
disappearance from the world, and that modern civilization is prepared to
resort to any means rather than relinquish those things, which it has won
at the cost of such great toil. For modern civilization and Christianity are
antagonistic to each other, and it is therefore inevitable that one give
place to the other. Modern progress can acknowledge no God save one
immanent to the world and opposed to the transcendent God of Christian
revelation, nor other morality save only that true kind whose source is
the human will determining itself by itself and becoming a law unto
itself.” (“Religion de l’avernir.”)
The World War has done much to dampen the ardor of those who
looked forward with enthusiasm to the millennium of a purely scientific
religion. In this spectacular lesson they have learned that science can
destroy as well as build. They have come to see that biology, physics,
and chemistry are morally colorless, and that we must go outside the
realm of natural science when we are in quest of that which can give
meaning to our lives and noble inspiration to our conduct. When science
supersedes religion, the result is always disillusionment following in the
wreck-strewn wake of moral and physical disaster.
Grave little manikins digging in the slime

Intent upon the old game of ‘Once-upon-a-time.’
Other little manikins engaged with things-to-come,
Building up the sand-heap called Millennium.
(Theodore MacManus)
Recently, the chancellor of a great university has seen fit publicly to

disclaim, in the name of his institution, all responsibility for a crime
committed by two members of the student body. The young men
involved in this affair had performed an experimental murder. The
experimenters, it would seem, were unable to discriminate between man
and beast. They had been taught by their professors that scientific
psychology dispenses with the soul, and that the difference between men
and brutes is one of degree only, and not of kind. Even that negligible
distinction, they were told, had been bridged by evolution. In the sequel,
the young men failed, apparently, to see why vivisection, which was
right in the case of animals, should be wrong in the case of human
beings. Their astounding obtuseness on this particular point was, of
course, exceedingly regrettable and hard to understand. Yet, somehow,
one cannot help thinking but that their education was largely responsible
for it.
In the startling crime of these students, modern educators will find
much food for serious thought. It should give pause to those, especially,
who have been overzealous in popularizing the Darwinian conception of
human nature. Let men of this type reflect upon what slender grounds
their dogmatism rests, and let them then weigh well the gravity of the
responsibility, which they incur. Tuccimei summarizes for them, in the
following terms, the nature and extent of their accountability:
“This perverse determination to place man and brutes in the same
category, interests me not so much from the scriptural standpoint as for
reasons moral and social. Science, as the more moderate of our
adversaries have told us often enough, does not assail religion, but
proceeds on its way regardless of the consequences. And the
consequences we see only too plainly, now that the evolutionary
philosophy has invaded every branch of knowledge and walk of life, and
has seeped down among the ignorant and turbulent masses. These
consequences are known as socialism and anarchy. The protagonists of
the new philosophy strove to repudiate them at first: but now many of
their number have laid aside even this pretense. Socialistic doctrines are
based exclusively upon our assumed kinship with the brutes, and the
leaders of militant socialism have inscribed on the frontispieces of their
books the chain fatally logical and terribly true of three names, Darwin,
Spencer, Marx.
“In truth, our common origin with the brutes being taken for granted,
why should we not enjoy in common with them the right to gratify every
instinct? Social inequalities are the product of laws and conventionalities
willed by the rich and powerful. In the natural and primitive state of
things they did not exist; why not proceed then to a general leveling of
the existing social order?
“Such an origin of the human race being assumed, the existence of the
soul and a future life becomes a myth invented by the priests of the
various religions. With this inconvenient restraint removed, there
remains no alternative save to aspire to the acquisition of all the
pleasures of life; and for him who lacks the wherewithal to procure them
for himself there remains no other recourse than to seek them by means
of violence or strategy. Hence anarchy. In this supposition, morality no
longer possesses that sole, true, and efficacious sanction which religion
alone can furnish; it amounts to nothing more than the resultant of the
evolution of the individual’s perfections and their coördination to the
well-being of his race and of society. But if, by reason of retarded
evolution, the social instincts have not progressed to the point of
repressing the individual or egoistic instincts, what guilt will there be in
the delinquent who lapses into the most atrocious crimes? Hence free
will is another myth that positive psychology and the science of moral
statistics have already been at pains to explode.
“And behold the suffering, the unfortunate, and the dying deprived of
their sole consolation, the last hope which faith held out to them, and
society reduced to an inferno of desperadoes and suicides! I could go on
showing in this way, to what a pass the evolutionistic theories bring
society and the individual.” (“La teoria dell’ evoluzione e le sue
applicazioni,” p. 46.)
GLOSSARY
Abiogenesis: The discredited hypothesis that life may originate
spontaneously in lifeless matter, i.e., apart from the influence of
living matter.
Adaptation: (1) The reciprocal aptitude of organism and environment for
each other; (2) a structure, modification of structure, or
behavioristic response enabling the organism to solve a special
problem imposed by the environment; (3) the process by which
the organism’s adjustment to the environment is brought about.
Allelomorphs: Genes located opposite each other on homologous
chromosomes and representing contrasting characters; they are
separated during meiosis according to the Mendelian law of
segregation, e.g. the genes for red and white in Four o’clocks
which when united give rise to pink, and when segregated, to red
and white flowers respectively, are allelomorphs of each other.
Alluvial: Pertaining to the Alluvium, which consists of fresh-water
deposits of the Pleistocene and Recent series, to be distinguished
from the Diluvium which consists of older Pleistocene
formations.
Amino-acids: The chemical building-stones of the proteins—organic
acids containing one or more amino-groups (—NH2) in place of
hydrogen, e.g., amino-acetic acid, CH2·NH2·COOH.
Amnion: A membranous bag which encloses the embryo in higher

vertebrates. The lower vertebrates, namely, fishes and amphibia,
have no amnion and are termed “anamniotic.” The reptiles, birds,
and mammals which possess it are termed amniotic vertebrates.
Amphioxus: The most simply organized animal having a dorsal
notochord. It is classified among the Acrania in contradistinction
to the craniate Chordates which make up the bulk of the
vertebrates.
Angiosperms: The higher plants, which have their seeds enclosed in
seed-vessels.
Anthropoid Apes: Apes of the family S , which approach man most
closely in their organization, namely, the chimpanzee, the gorilla,
the gibbon, and orang-utan.
Antibody: Chemical substances produced in the blood in reaction to the
injection of antigens or toxic substances and capable of
counteracting or neutralizing said substance. Such antibodies are
specific for determinate antigens.
Antigen: Any substance that causes the production of special antibodies
in the blood of susceptible animals, after one or several
injections.
Arthropods: The phylum of exoskeletal invertebrates comprising
crustaceans, arachnida, insects, etc.
Atavism: The resemblance to an ancestor more distant than the parents.
Automatism: A spontaneous action, not in response to recognizable
stimuli.
Basichromatin: That portion of a cell’s nuclear network which contains
nuclein and is deeply stained by basic dyes.
Biparental: Derived from two progenitors, i.e., a father and mother.
Brachiopods: Invertebrate animals bearing a superficial resemblance to
bivalve molluscs, but belonging to a totally different group—
lamp shells.
Cambrian: The “oldest” system of the Palæozoic group of fossiliferous
rocks.
Carbohydrates: The sugars, starches, etc.,—polyhydric alcohols with
aldehydic or ketonic groups, and acetals of same, etc.
Catalyst: A substance which accelerates a chemical reaction without
permanently participating in it, being left over unchanged at the
end of the process.

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CHAPTER 5. IDENTITY AND SELF-ESTEEM (70 items)

1. According to William James, our self-esteem is the ratio of . . .

4. One strength of most measures of self-esteem is that . . .

c. Both of the above

7. An idiographic study of self-esteem is . . .

8. Erik Erikson attributed his interest and lifelong work on identity to . . .

10. Erikson called his theory of personality psychosocial because . . .

c. Freud suggested it to him while Erikson was in an hypnotic trance

11. In Erikson’s view, successfully forming an identity requires . . .

*a. identity achievement

24. The recent findings of identity development in adulthood mean that . . .

25. According to Erikson, the psychosocial crisis of young adulthood is _______.

26. Research on gender differences in intimacy during adolescence show that . . .

§ 5. The Edict of the American Association

Grave little manikins digging in the slime

Recently, the chancellor of a great university has seen fit publicly to

Amnion: A membranous bag which encloses the embryo in higher

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